Hurricane Ike

[Dr. Shane]

This one was headed straight for us but turned northward a couple of days before landfall.

Rescue crews comb Texas coast for Ike victims

State and local officials began searching for survivors by late morning, just hours after Ike roared ashore at Galveston with 110 mph winds, heavy rains and towering waves. Overnight, dispatchers received thousands of calls from frightened residents who bucked mandatory orders to leave as the storm closed in.

Rescue crews were frustrated, but vowed to get to the more than 140,000 people who stubbornly stayed behind as soon as they could.

"This is a democracy," said Mark Miner, a spokesman for Gov. Rick Perry. "Local officials who can order evacuations put out very strong messages. Gov. Perry put out a very strong warning. But you can't force people to leave their homes. They made a decision to ride out the storm. Our prayers are with them."

...The Federal Emergency Management Agency said search and rescue teams were at the ready in Houston, poised to go to the aid of those stranded by Hurricane Ike. At a sports arena, tractor-trailers and large sport utility vehicles sat idle as the vast storm churned northward across the state.

The storm, nearly as big as Texas itself, blasted a 500-mile stretch of coastline in Louisiana and Texas. It breached levees, flooded roads and led more than 1 million people to evacuate and seek shelter inland...

In Louisiana, Ike's storm surge inundated thousands of homes and businesses. In Plaquemines Parish, near New Orleans, a sheriff's spokesman said levees were overtopped and floodwaters were higher than either hurricane Katrina or Rita.

"The storm surge we're experiencing, on both sides of the Mississippi River, is higher than anything we've seen before," Marie said.

As Ike moved north later Saturday morning, the storm dropped to a Category 1 hurricane, then a tropical storm. At 2 p.m. EDT, the storm's center was just southeast of Palestine, Texas, and moving toward the north near 16 mph. Winds were still at 60 mph, and tornadoes were possible.

Because Ike was so huge, hurricane winds pounded the coast for hours before landfall and continued through the morning, with the worst winds and rain after the center came ashore, forecasters said...

ke landed near the nation's biggest complex of refineries and petrochemical plants, and already, prices were reacting. Gas prices nationwide rose nearly 6 cents a gallon to $3.733, according to auto club AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express. Some feared worries about a prolonged shutdown in the Gulf of Mexico could send prices surging back toward all-time highs of $4 per gallon, reached over the summer when oil prices neared $150 a barrel.

More than 3 million customers lost power in southeast Texas, and some 140,000 more in Louisiana. That's in addition to the 60,000 still without power from Labor Day's Hurricane Gustav. Suppliers warned it could be weeks before all service was restored.

But there was good news: A stranded freighter with 22 men aboard made it through the brunt of the storm safely, and a tugboat was on the way to save them. And an evacuee from Calhoun County gave birth to a baby girl in the restroom of a shelter with the aid of an expert in geriatric psychiatry who delivered his first baby in two decades.

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[carolaa]

Yeee-haawwww! Our internet is back up!! OK, here's what happened in our neighborhood:

Ike actually ended up landing about 20 miles east of what was projected early Friday. That was great news for us, because we ended up being on the west end of it. (It's better to be on the west side too.) We had N/NW winds of about 50-60 Sat. a.m. about 2:00-8:00, with gusts a bit higher of course. Our area ended up with lots of downed fences and tree branches, and some shingles, but that's about it. Our lights flickered several times but the electricity never did go out. We had no cell phone service until about 3pm on Sat. And, like I said, our internet just came back on (about 5pm Sun.) We are in the area that they are encouraging to drink bottled or boiled water, as a precaution, until the water is tested.

So our family fared very, very well overall - thanks for all your prayers and thoughts!!

As far as the Houston area, Ike pretty much devastated Galveston and several SE Houston suburbs. That area got up to a foot of rain, compared with about 5 inches in our area.

The storm surge (that's Gulf water pushed inland) was about 20 feet in some places, seriously overflowing the bayous and reservoirs. Strong winds (and possibly tornadoes) tore roofs off buildings etc. as far as the northern suburbs. They are reporting 9 storm-related fatalities so far, which they consider amazingly low. Almost 2,000 people were rescued who had ignored the evacuation orders (ugh!). Downtown Houston was pretty hard hit - you probably saw pics on TV of the JPMorgan Chase bldg with most windows gone. I-10, a major thru-way, was flooded north of downtown. Over 2 million people are without electricity.

Stores and gas stations are beginning to reopen, with long, long lines, like waits of over an hour. People's patience is starting to wear thin. They have been cooped up for 48 hours and are now wanting to get back to normal. As I write, anger is mounting at FEMA's slow response - still waiting for supplies and personnel more than 24 hrs after the fact.

Not to mention the only way to apply for FEMA aid for housing assistance is to call or go to the website - this for people with no electricity or phone service.

The good, great, terrific news for all those w/o electricity (think a/c) is that a cool front came through last night, even earlier than expected.

[Dr. Shane]

Great to hear you are OK. We are waiting for that cool front down here. I have really realized the need to stock up on nonperishable food. I am also glad we cook with propane so we don't need power to cook.

[Stan]

Still waiting for an update from Kountzer

[carolaa]

Still waiting for an update from Kountzer

That whole area is still w/o electricity. Most of the homes there are OK, though. So unless a tree fell on the house or something weird like that, I think they are ok for the most part. There's still curfews everywhere, though traffic picked up this afternoon (that's what it looked like on tv - haven't actually been out yet to see for myself).

There's no electricity at work yet, either, so I have tomorrow off.